The 10 Most Epic Summer Romances

Yes, technically Grease takes place within the school year, but one cannot ignore the summer fling that brought the film’s two leads, the prim and proper Sandy and the tough and macho Danny, together — even if Danny himself tried to forget it once Sandy enrolled at Rydell High come September. [Where to stream Grease]

A potential shitty summer turns into something special for James, whose European tour is aborted when he has to return to Pittsburgh to work at the local amusement park. But it’s where he meets Em, his intellectual equal who also has dreams that exist beyond the titular park. [Where to stream Adventureland]

High school graduation serves as a catalyst for the beautiful valedictorian Diane Court to fall for the aspiring kickboxer and amateur philosopher Lloyd Dobler in Cameron Crowe’s directorial debut, which still manages to get Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” stuck in everybody’s heads. [Where to stream Say Anything…]

Sometimes the heat makes people fall in love — and lose their minds. When the 15-year-old Holly meets the much-older greaser named Kit, the two instantly fall for each other. And then they fall off the grid, embarking on a murderous rampage through a hazy Midwestern summer. [Where to stream Badlands]

Their love survived a world war, a brutally classist Joan Allen, and Alzheimer’s, but it all started, of course, during one romantic summer in that South Carolina heat (and occasional sexy downpours). [Where to stream The Notebook]

Ingmar Bergman wasn’t known for his romantic comedies, instead focusing on the depths of human despair. Those long winters kept the Swedish director pretty depressed — but when the long summer nights rolled around, he apparently got pretty horny. What else can explain his glorious sex farce featuring some amorous folks in the countryside whose romantic pursuits become more manic with the later sunset. [Where to stream Smiles of a Summer Night]

Go back to the first film in Richard Linklater’s romantic trilogy, in which a young American named Jesse spends an evening with — and falls for — a French woman named Celine under the starry skies of Vienna where their two-decade romance first bloomed. [Where to stream Before Sunrise]

Who says summer lovin’ is just for the kids? In what was essentially the Fifty Shades of Grey of the ’90s, a romance blossomed between a traveling nature photographer and an Italian woman stuck in the middle of Iowa over the course of one hot, sweaty weekend. [Where to stream The Bridges of Madison County]

Who could forget the fateful summer that brought Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar to that lonely Montana mountain, where the two ranch hands kept each other warm on those chilly nights — and started a decades-long love affair that they had to hide from the rest of the world. [Where to stream Brokeback Mountain]

The Summer of Love came a few years early for Frances “Baby” Houseman, who meets the dashing (and much older) Johnny Castle while staying at a resort with her family in the Catskills. Johnny doesn’t just teach Baby everything she needs to know about love; he also teaches her how to dance and have the time of her life. [Where to stream Dirty Dancing]

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